Quote from: Omega on April 29, 2025, 11:16:56 PMIn D&D a HUGE problem is the gradual humanization of orcs.

They went from these beast headed foes - to tall goblins - to eventually essentially humans with tusks - to Mexicans, with tusks, of all things.

I've brought it up before, but the Orcs of Earthdawn were a much better portrayal of Orcs as a people. The attempts by the wokies to inject their modern agenda into a fantasy setting is clumsy and stupid and lacks imagination.

Quote from: Opaopajr on Today at 05:04:06 AM OMG, so how are they gonna get their groove back?!

I dunno how others will approach it, but my setting makes Orcs a major threat by making them the mutated descendants of the last Emperor and his Praetorian Guard. The Cataclysm that destroyed their advanced global empire warped them into adrenaline-fueled hulks; stronger, faster and with sharper senses than the humans they previously were and possessed of a Manifest Destiny to reunite all the lands of their former empire under their rule.

Their engineers know how to construct versions of their former weapons and armor. A consistent theme for orcish weaponry is it mixes a melee weapon with a firearm... the standard is the "Glaive-Rifle" and a bladed-pistol sidearm.

They've gone and enslaved a race of small bat-like beastmen (any non-orc they capture is seen as only worthy of slavery) and, over the course of a hundred generations (beastmen reach maturity in two-years), warped them into their barely sapient Goblin slave soldiers and cannon-fodder.

Their only weakness is they exist in a perpetual adrenaline fight-or-flight state that can be exploited to lead them into untenable positions (also, if you can break their morale, it breaks hard). Relatedly, their last Emperor died without declaring which of his four children was to be his heir (he kept playing them against each other to keep them from trying to overthrow him, then died suddenly... resulting in a civil war between the four heirs and their factions).

A final weakness they've learned to use as a strength is that about a sixth of the orcs don't stop growing... they just get bigger and bigger as they age while also getting dumber and dumber as more and more of their brain gets devoted to keeping all that extra mass mobile. They call them Ogres and use them as shock troops wielding hybrid cannon-battering rams.

The largest before their hearts give out are nearly 20 feet tall and have barely animal-level intellect. The orcs use them as living siege engines, plated in armor and carrying platforms for orc gunners and field guns.

While orc raiders are a persistent threat to smaller communities, even the largest realms living anywhere near the Orcish lands fear the day their civil war ends and they unite under a new emperor. For that is day the Orcish Empire again marches united against all the realms of Men.

Quote from: HappyDaze on Today at 12:21:37 AM

Quote from: Trond on Today at 12:05:09 AMThe weird thing about orcs is that they did not only lose their mojo after Tolkien, they got dumbed down too. Tolkien had several kinds of orcs. The "standard" ones (often called goblins) e.g. in the Misty Mountains, the larger and stronger Uruks, and even some kind of sniffer scout orcs.

If they did get "dumbed down" or simplified in early D&D, they've gone way past Tolien in variety since (although nowhere near as much as the Baskin Robins flavors of elves). Even WFRP has several kinds of greenskins, from goblins/grots to orcs, black orcs, hobgoblins, and more. The Age of Sigmar setting introduces the Kruleboys, which are you sneaky "sniffer scout orcs" with a heaping helping of sadism.

Not sure, the classification orcs in the One Ring is pretty complex.
Who turned the orcs green though? Warhammer?

Quote from: Trond on Today at 10:21:36 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on Today at 12:21:37 AM

Quote from: Trond on Today at 12:05:09 AMThe weird thing about orcs is that they did not only lose their mojo after Tolkien, they got dumbed down too. Tolkien had several kinds of orcs. The "standard" ones (often called goblins) e.g. in the Misty Mountains, the larger and stronger Uruks, and even some kind of sniffer scout orcs.

If they did get "dumbed down" or simplified in early D&D, they've gone way past Tolien in variety since (although nowhere near as much as the Baskin Robins flavors of elves). Even WFRP has several kinds of greenskins, from goblins/grots to orcs, black orcs, hobgoblins, and more. The Age of Sigmar setting introduces the Kruleboys, which are you sneaky "sniffer scout orcs" with a heaping helping of sadism.

Not sure, the classification orcs in the One Ring is pretty complex.
Who turned the orcs green though? Warhammer?

Warhammer certainly did so, but I don't know if they were the first to do so.

Quote from: Omega on April 29, 2025, 11:16:56 PMIn D&D a HUGE problem is the gradual humanization of orcs.

They went from these beast headed foes - to tall goblins - to eventually essentially humans with tusks - to Mexicans, with tusks, of all things.

100% THIS, at least for D&D.

Since I don't play the current version of Woke D&D, it doesn't affect me.

At least in my game, Orcs rank right up there with Hobgoblins when it comes to Goblinoid races. I generally treat Hobgoblins as the de facto leaders of Goblin tribes if present. Regular Goblins look at Hobgoblins as the "uber-Goblins" of their race. That doesn't mean a Goblin chief or sub-chief will just give up their position. They'll fight for it. They may fail or die, but they'll fight.

Same goes for the Orcs. Though generally stronger than Goblins, the Orcs do have an "uber-Orc" race in my games. Depending on the game world they're know as Black Orcs or Cloven-hoof Orcs. The Black Orcs are taken from the Dragonslayer RPG by Greg Gillespie and Cloven-hoof Orcs are from Hackmaster 4e. Either way, they fill the role Hobgoblins do in Orc tribes. Both are 3+3 HD and some other small abilities.

And believe me, the animosity the Orcs and Goblins have against each other is a reflection of both their respective gods.

Quote from: HappyDaze on Today at 10:41:09 AM

Quote from: Trond on Today at 10:21:36 AMNot sure, the classification orcs in the One Ring is pretty complex.
Who turned the orcs green though? Warhammer?

Warhammer certainly did so, but I don't know if they were the first to do so.

The D&D Cartoon in 1983 had green-skinned orcs. That was the same year that Warhammer originally came out.



This post has a partial pictorial history of D&D orcs.

https://grognardia.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-very-partial-pictorial-history-of-orcs.html

I think my mental image of orcs is based on Tolkien, and particularly John Howe's illustrations.

It could be argued that Orcs were the major villian in B2, they had two caves, everyone else had but one. But the problem with Orcs in a class and level game is you are always looking for a tougher challenge. Orcs are great starter villians but for higher level unless players are going to slaughter hundreds of them or you create super-orcs to keep them in the game they just come off as been there done that.

Quote from: Ruprecht on Today at 02:02:16 PMIt could be argued that Orcs were the major villian in B2, they had two caves, everyone else had but one. But the problem with Orcs in a class and level game is you are always looking for a tougher challenge. Orcs are great starter villians but for higher level unless players are going to slaughter hundreds of them or you create super-orcs to keep them in the game they just come off as been there done that.

Well, that last part isn't an orc problem but a power inflation problem.  When an 88 hit point adult red dragon was a real threat to some moderately high level characters, a sufficient number of orcs still was too.

And if orcs are no longer quite that big of a personal problem to a name-level or higher character, they still are to that character's henchmen, hirelings, villagers, etc. 

We could just as easily talk about why thugs aren't much of a threat to Batman and even less to Superman. 

Here's something else to consider:

Take a look at this table out of the 1st Ed AD&D DMG, pg 107:



It's interesting that Orcs in regards to Goblins, they're tolerant, but will bully/harass them when given the opportunity.

But Goblins to Orcs, Goblins are neutral with their relationship to them.

It's interesting because later on in D&DG under Maglubiyet:

QuoteBoth goblins and hobgoblins worship Maglubiyet, the Mighty One, Lord of
the Depths and Darkness. Maglubiyet appears as a huge black goblin-type
with red flames for eyes, sharp fangs and clawed hands. Maglubiyet is a
war god and a great general. He commands mighty armies of goblin spirits
in Hell, where they eternally war against Gruumsh's orcish spirit army.
(Goblin and hobgoblin shamans claim that Maglubiyet always wins these
battles, but there is no permanent death in Hell, so the destroyed orcish
spirits always re-form.)

and under Grummsh:

QuoteThe orcs say that Gruumsh commands a mighty army of spirit-ores in Hell, and these war continuously with a similar army of spirit-goblins controlled by Maglubiyet. The ores always defeat the goblins, but the goblin spirits al␂ways re-form to start the battle again.

Compared to their DMG listings, Orcs and Goblins are downright hostile to each other.

Discuss...

Regarding Tolkien, I think Socrates-GM did a superb job of outlining the conceits of the Tolkien-Orc foundation. At no point were they ever outlined as having some culture beyond being savages that simply predated on everyone and one another. On a narrative level, yeah I can totally see them as organic slaughter-bots for the use of those powerful enough to bend them to their will.

A modern book series that completely embraces this idea is R. Scott Bakker's "The Prince of Nothing" series. Where his "orcs" are called Sranc, and they are made from the genetic material of their setting's "elves" (they're not actual elves, just share a lot of qualities). But the Sranc *are* like primate jackals, driven by *programmed* urges of rapacious violence (it really is some dark, dark, dark stuff). Unlike orcs, they're not large, imagine an elf with large narrow chest, like a greyhound, skinny, with beautiful elf-faces and shark-teeth. They're only like 5-feet tall, but they attack in mass numbers. They are controlled by the antagonists and the Sranc swarm like hive creatures.

Left to their own devices, they're much like roaming bands of goblins - killing everything everything they can just to survive. They're like locusts.

The question is - what do you want from your orcs? I think the green color is as much from the cartoon (which to me came as much from the Gammorean guards in Star Wars) as anything else. I never thought of Orcs as green until the cartoon and Star Wars. They were always pinkish pig-people from Keep on the Borderland.

The real question now, is all these years later, post-Warhammer, and worse - post WARCRAFT (which has done more damage to the conception of the Orc than *anything* mentioned here), does it matter that they're green? Probably not.

My orcs are cunning, dangerous, stupid yet smart enough to know how to forge weapons and learn slowly, but survive through... "proliferation" (take that any way you want). My "good races" do not fuck around with Orcs. When I run my Realms games, I *emphasize* that no one that lives in the north, near the strongholds of the Orc tribes, has been untouched by them. Their generational uprisings have slaughtered and enslaved tens of thousands of people. Everyone knows someone in their family that was killed, or hauled off by Orc raiders.

Half-orcs are a thing and are treated accordingly. And I make sure to put the ever fucking fear of Gruumsh into my PC's so that even IF their were a "good/smart Orc" that Orc knows he'd be a dead before he ever got into bow-shot of a human stronghold. No one would even question it. The Orcs (and their goblinoid minions) are a *scourge*. This doesn't mean you can't have politics, or anything like that. It just means it's usually swing-first, no need for questions ever - as a starting point of debate, for *good* reasons.

There are different types of Elves, and Dwarves, and Halflings but they never made an effort to provide different Orc cultures. Yes they have cross-breads but not like cultures. The DMs Guide should have had tables of ideas of how to make your Orcs (or other races) different from the baseline.

But the real question is "what are they supposed to represent in the world"?

Most TTRPGs don't emphasize this at all, one could argue for the purposes of gaming, it's not required. As this thread indicates, the gradual *de-emphasis* of what ostensibly is the "traditional orc" - has revealed the slow steady march of ideological issues into the hobby.

Further it's blurred by the fact that while people incorrectly assume D&D orcs are just Tolkien orcs, they're really not. They're as caricature to the Tolkien narrative concept, which exists *specifically* as a moral and spiritual metaphor in accordance to his setting's cosmology. Whereas D&D orcs have just been savage antagonists for the purposes of playing the game and killing them for their sweet loot.

The real question here is important only for GM's that run deep games. Otherwise it's kinda irrelevant unless one is trying to make some kinda statement that probably has no use in gaming.

Orcs lose their mojo like *any* race does: because GM's don't give them a reason to exist for any particular purpose.

D&D Elves are not Tolkien Elves either. Hell most of the mainline Humans - Aragorn - isn't even a real Human. Dunedain are more mega than a regular human. Boromir, the lone human get killed.

And in this, I think while Orcs and Elves and everything else might be inspired from Tolkien, it serves no real useful purpose looking at Tolkien in order to find "the mojo" in their D&D counterparts. Rather, they need to be defined with purpose at the table where they're not defined *well* in a setting. Or remove them.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on April 29, 2025, 10:35:54 PM

Quote from: Fheredin on April 29, 2025, 07:20:57 PMThe problem with Tolkienesque Orcs is that one of Tolkien's biggest mistakes revolves around Orcs; they basically ceased to exist after the fall of Sauron.

For the meticulous plotting detail for the rest of LotR, this feels utterly baffling. It is as if Tolkien didn't want to waste word count on managing the denoument for a whole race of antagonists, and so he drew a big editorial circle around them and deleted them. Consequently, we must also conclude we never really got to see Orc culture as its own thing; we only ever saw Sauron reflected.

The other thing to remember when talking about RPGs specifically is that RPGs tend to have much higher power scaling than LotR did. Yes, some of the characters in LotR were definitely epic heroes, but when they roll up against a Balrog, they have to simply flee, with only the Maiar in the party even standing a chance of bringing a fight to a draw. Higher level RPG combat would absolutely involve killing this kind of monster.

Orc culture is a non-issue in Tolkien's Context:

It is a known fact that Tolkien had a lot of conflicting ideas regarding the Orcs within his setting, both around their origin and metaphysics. he heavily prescribed to the idea  St. Augustine put forward. that Evil is merely the absence of good and thus has no generative quality of it's own.

IMHO, Tolkien left this point up in the air because he was stuck in a Catch-22. If he says that Morgoth created orcs ex nihilo, then I have to say that was a very impressive bit of non-creativity. If you say that orcs are corrupted elves, then they should have a residual potential for good because they have some sort of residual elvishness, and suddenly all the action scenes are mass murder. Tolkien's solution seems to have been a Quantum Backstory, because to my knowledge he never firmly settled on one solution or the other while he was alive.

It's my opinion that the second option--orcs are corrupted elves--is much more in keeping with the spirit of the Evil is Not Creative philosophy because evil was being corruptive rather than creative. If you say Morgoth created orcs out of nothing, then you have to ask yourself how relevant this restriction that evil isn't generative is, because at that point I feel it turns into hair-splitting.

I also want to point out that this philosophy towards evil doesn't really jive with the Bible. Jesus's least taught parable--the unjust steward--ends with Jesus providing a pointed critique of good people playing the game of life in a non-creative manner for fear of doing evil, while evil people exercise creativity which is completely unrestricted by morality. So, no, I don't think this philosophy is the full story; I'm just trying to be internally consistent with Tolkien's interpretation of these ideas when theorizing for LotR.

If orcs had some residual elvishness, they deserved some form of a denoument, and that would mean ending with their culture flourishing even if they weren't exactly at peace with the other inhabitants of Middle Earth.

Quote from: tenbones on Today at 05:42:45 PMBut the real question is "what are they supposed to represent in the world"?

I sort of like the Scandinavian "Drakar & Demoner" take on it: they are a race among several "dark peoples" (includes trolls and a few others) that tend to prefer darkness of night and living in caves or tunnels, and who also have a cultural tendency to respect brutal absolute leaders. So they are obviously very attractive minions for such potential leaders, like evil wizards, but it's never spelled out that they are inherently evil.